Chinese slave labour will always be more attractive to corporations, its like turning the clock back to the early 1900's over here when men made next to nothing for toiling away in a factory.............

As soon as the Chinese are tired of working for nothing in unsafe conditions, the corporations will move to the next 3rd world nation...the well paying factory jobs are gone forever...........all due to greed.

Logged

"big fish like to live in bad places, that's how they get to be big fish"

....the well paying factory jobs are gone forever...........a ll due to greed.

The article said the DeWitt workers were averaging $13.50/hr. That's pretty well paid for factory labor. My son recently had to move 350 miles from home to get $11.00/hr for production line work.

And "greed" is always a double edged sword. Was Vise-Grip in DeWitt a union shop? Did the original owners pay $13.50/hr voluntarily, or contractually?

Quote

He's glad to work as many hours as he can get. Most months, he earns about $420, including overtime.In DeWitt, where the average wage was $13.50 an hour, monthly pay was more than five times as much ? not counting overtime.

I wonder what the landlords and banks are charging for rent and mortgages in Dewitt?

Quote

In Shenzhen, Xu bunks with six other men in a company dormitory room next to the factory. The rent is cheap ? 40 yuan per month, or about $6.50.

Sad to hear this about Vice Grip. But remember what happened when Rubbermaid went up against Walmart- they tried to pitch their product at their price and Walmart responded that if they wanted to sell, it would be at THEIR price. Next thing you know, the shelves were stocked with Sterlite (sp?) products not Rubbermaid. I believe that hit another smaller town in Ohio.

Ol P- have you seen the report on minimum wage? If it had remained proportionate, it would be in the $23 per hour range today. Wages aren't nearly the percentage of cash flow of business monies like they were in the 70's and 80's. They will tell you it is, but it's not. Corporate profit is higher now than it ever has been. They'll outsource in a heartbeat to increase profit margins, and STILL whine that employee wages are killing them.

Ol P- have you seen the report on minimum wage? If it had remained proportionate, it would be in the $23 per hour range today. Wages aren't nearly the percentage of cash flow of business monies like they were in the 70's and 80's. They will tell you it is, but it's not. Corporate profit is higher now than it ever has been. They'll outsource in a heartbeat to increase profit margins, and STILL whine that employee wages are killing them.

I'm not talking about Fed or State minimum wage jobs. The Teacher's Union in WA State threatens to strike nearly every year for higher wages. Even the engineers at Boeing have walked out twice in the past 7-8 years. The operating costs trickle down through every level, from the clerk at the register, to transportation costs of warehousing and handling delivery. We've been in an upward spiral of more demands by more workers for decades. The cost of fuels has only recently entered the equation. The effort involved in punching out an equipment part in a factory has not changed, other than to get easier through improved manufacturing techniques. The costs of materials has increased, but only because it costs more to supply those materials. Why?From the standpoint of a corporation, they are forced to reduce their labor force when the salary and benefits paid to one worker are equal to what it cost them to employ two workers 20 years ago.Why do the workers feel the need more money? To pay higher bills for everything from utilities, to toasters, to pharmaceuticals. What has driven those costs up? The demand for more compensation for the same amount of work. "Greed".....

Logged

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

labor costs are just one part of the pie. Federal, State and local taxes on businesses, environmental regulations, labor regulations, Obama care concerns, insurance costs...................the list of reasons to move manufacturing just keep growing.

labor costs are just one part of the pie. Federal, State and local taxes on businesses, environmental regulations, labor regulations, Obama care concerns, insurance costs...................the list of reasons to move manufacturing just keep growing.

The American consumer makes a lot of decisions that determine where products are made. Walmart sells mostly Chinese made product because they can offer it at the lowest price. Vice-Grips from China will probably outsell the domestically made ones even if they are of inferior quality because the average consumer uses price as the first and sometimes only decision point.

We have evolved into a "throw away" culture. Fewer people fix or repair anything and in a lot of consumer goods there are no replacement parts available even if you wanted to. I buy American tools because I hate to support China and their politics but I buy gasoline made with middle eastern oil because there is no viable alternative. We are rapidly approaching that position with everything. I looked at some attachments for a Bobcat skid steer the other day. They were made in China, shipped over here on a boat, and sell for half of what the manufacturer in eastern South Dakota sells them for.

Logged

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. (Mark Twain)

labor costs are just one part of the pie. Federal, State and local taxes on businesses, environmental regulations, labor regulations, Obama care concerns, insurance costs.............. .....the list of reasons to move manufacturing just keep growing.

Why have all these items increased in cost? Labor regulations? Which ones in particular? What exactly are "fair labor laws"?

The fact remains that other cultures are more willing to work harder for less pay than most "Americans" these days, even in this country. Why aren't the crop fields of California and the orchards of Washington filled with local workers? If you doubt me, try getting the neighbor's kid to mow your lawn for $5...or even $10.

Logged

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

I don't have any desire to get into a debate here, so I am just going to throw my opinion out here:

Everyone wants jobs to come back to America. Everyone wants to buy that is made in America. But no one wants to PAY for things made here. GE (General Electric) for example. They just brought back appliance manufacturing to Louisville, KY this year. The newer front loading style washer and dryer sets were selling for around $1600 per set being manufactured in Mexico. The new USA made sets are upwards of $2700. And guess what... NO ONE IS BUYING THEM!

Logged

"Big drama next few hours.. But whatever happens, no matter what they tell you.. Don't let 'em take them chains off me.."

One of the big differences is...when people had good paying factory jobs they could afford to pay a higher price for an item, coupled with that tho is that there was less off-shore competition creating a cheaper product, so people just bought the product made in North America.

Now, just about anything made here is made over-seas and cheaper. People have become reliant upon cheaper goods, why? because they make less money, why? cause the well paying factory jobs ( or even some of the lesser paying jobs ) are gone.

Now that the momentum has shifted to people wanting cheap, even if a company like Red brought up, moves back stateside, the people have now become used to cheap and don't have well paying jobs to buy higher priced goods, kind of a catch 22.

Globalization cares not about the standard of living in any country, it only concerns itself with profit...unfortunately, we in N.America who grew up knowing what a middle class was, are seeing a way of life we all probably took for granted slowly fade away.

Logged

"big fish like to live in bad places, that's how they get to be big fish"

One of the big differences is...when people had good paying factory jobs they could afford to pay a higher price for an item, coupled with that tho is that there was less off-shore competition creating a cheaper product, so people just bought the product made in North America.

Now, just about anything made here is made over-seas and cheaper. People have become reliant upon cheaper goods, why? because they make less money, why? cause the well paying factory jobs ( or even some of the lesser paying jobs ) are gone.

Now that the momentum has shifted to people wanting cheap, even if a company like Red brought up, moves back stateside, the people have now become used to cheap and don't have well paying jobs to buy higher priced goods, kind of a catch 22.

Globalization cares not about the standard of living in any country, it only concerns itself with profit...unfortunat ely, we in N.America who grew up knowing what a middle class was, are seeing a way of life we all probably took for granted slowly fade away.

This is the spiral I was talking about. Long before outsourcing became an issue, factory workers were loosing their jobs to automation. I was watching a How Is It Made TV episode and they pointed out that what used to take 20 factory workers a day to produce was now done by machines and ONE operator.

As for current workers not having as much money, I disagree. Way back in 1987 I wrote a computer program that compared the consumer prices of major staple items (bread, hamburger, cars) in 1964 with the wages back then. It also compared current (circa 1987) wages with consumer prices.What the program did was tell a person how many hours they had to work in 1964 to buy a loaf of bread, and how many hours (minutes) they had to work in 1987 to buy a loaf at current prices.In all cases, in 1987 a person had to work fewer hours to pay for, say a car, than they did 20 years earlier, even though the cost of those items had drastically increased. So had wages.I see no reason to believe the escalation (buying power) today hasn't continued to increase.In 1964, I was making $.75/hr wages. In 1987, I was making $12.00/hr. A loaf of bread or a pound of hamburger had only doubled in price, compared to my income.

Logged

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

the 800 pound gorilla in the room, is we just don't need as many people to make everything we want. That means jobs have disappeared. We have millions more Citizens than we did 30 years ago, and need millions less of them to produce everything we want/need. Throw in all the jobs that went off shore, and well, it begins to 'splane what is going on in America today.Trick is how are those extra bodies going to support themselves? Answer? They can't, and so they become the 'recipient class'. Birth to death, on the public dole. It is only going to get worse.

the 800 pound gorilla in the room, is we just don't need as many people to make everything we want. That means jobs have disappeared. We have millions more Citizens than we did 30 years ago, and need millions less of them to produce everything we want/need. Throw in all the jobs that went off shore, and well, it begins to 'splane what is going on in America today.Trick is how are those extra bodies going to support themselves? Answer? They can't, and so they become the 'recipient class'. Birth to death, on the public dole. It is only going to get worse.

Definition of Modern Socialism: The productive (working class) supporting the unproductive (consumer class). Anyone who thinks we live in a "class-less society" is..........

Logged

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

the 800 pound gorilla in the room, is we just don't need as many people to make everything we want. That means jobs have disappeared. We have millions more Citizens than we did 30 years ago, and need millions less of them to produce everything we want/need. Throw in all the jobs that went off shore, and well, it begins to 'splane what is going on in America today.Trick is how are those extra bodies going to support themselves? Answer? They can't, and so they become the 'recipient class'. Birth to death, on the public dole. It is only going to get worse.

Definition of Modern Socialism: The productive (working class) supporting the unproductive (consumer class). Anyone who thinks we live in a "class-less society" is..........

I wonder at times what it would be like to live on the other side, the give me support side?

Of course I would also like to go back to the US of the sixties.

Regardless, I have bought my last pair of new Vice-grips. Farm auctions from now on.

Logged

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. (Mark Twain)

Suffice it to say, I agree that our population is increasing faster than it should.

Consider this, the more people there are, the less food, water, land, and wealth there is to go around.

Only because we insist on living in "hives", and having stuff brought to us. Wold-wide, there is more than enough land for everyone to have their 'elbow room'. Do the math. Divide the surface area of habitable land on the Planet by the 6 Billion inhabitants. But nobody these days want's to live in Siberia.

Logged

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

Suffice it to say, I agree that our population is increasing faster than it should.

Consider this, the more people there are, the less food, water, land, and wealth there is to go around.

Only because we insist on living in "hives", and having stuff brought to us. Wold-wide, there is more than enough land for everyone to have their 'elbow room'. Do the math. Divide the surface area of habitable land on the Planet by the 6 Billion inhabitants. But nobody these days want's to live in Siberia.

Yeah, the growing season is too short there.

Logged

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. (Mark Twain)

Suffice it to say, I agree that our population is increasing faster than it should.

Consider this, the more people there are, the less food, water, land, and wealth there is to go around.

Only because we insist on living in "hives", and having stuff brought to us. Wold-wide, there is more than enough land for everyone to have their 'elbow room'. Do the math. Divide the surface area of habitable land on the Planet by the 6 Billion inhabitants. But nobody these days want's to live in Siberia.

Yeah, the growing season is too short there.

That...and there's no Wal-Mart.

Logged

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

Interesting to read this article after being in the Middle East for the past 3 months. I understand it's not easy to compete in a global market whe America has minimum wage, taxes, copyright laws (as does Europe), and many countries do not. Hence why much of Europe is also struggling today.

When your labor force happily (seemingly) works for $100/week, you can compete on a world-scale, even with an inferior product (price almost always wins).

But, I also think that if we (modern people) started buying "heirloom" items like our granddads did, take care of that one item, then we'd be better off. Not to mention all the drama with healthcare costs, insurance, etc. It's money spent on carelessness (no offense healthcare or insurance providers). Just bad habits.

Also, where's the investment in ingenuity? The Bell corporation (and others) used to drop bankloads on young talented kids just to sit around and think up new ideas, which changed America and the World. Boosted our economy globally.

And don't get me started on our war spending...

Just sayin', times change. Some for the good, some not. If everyone took a little ownership, a little responsibility, and respected others, we'd have a better place to call home.

I'd like to see what would happen to the price of consumables manufactured anywhere if we removed the financial speculators and cavalier stock traders. Population, jobs, wages, costs of the polis in general, all pale in comparison to the corporate feudal lords gallivanting across the earth taking what they can and pitting countries and people against each other. I think it would be more productive to focus on corporate greed and brutality before finding fault with your fellow workers. Small people are a less threatening rival though.

Corporations all over the world are recording record profits and there's no jobs or money...weird. sounds like another time in history, what'd they call it? Oh the gilded age.

You said a mouthful there! "Serf" is an appropriate term. We don't even own the land we "bought", and are paying rent on in the form of property taxes. It can be confiscated with the stroke of a pen. Don't pay your "rent", and it reverts to the County, and/or State.Where else can you have the privilege of paying a mortgage AND property taxes? Why do I hear the strains of Tennessee Ernie's song "Sixteen Tons" echoing in the background?

"You load sixteen tons, what do you get Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store."

Logged

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

I like to get out in the woods. Listen to nature, observe the wildlife, and basically have a good time.

I usually have an american made vise-grips somewhere around.

Logged

I love being out in the woods! I like this quote from Mors Kochanski - "The more you know, the less you carry". I believe in the same creed, & think "Knowledge & honed skills" are the best things to carry with ya when you're out in the wilds. They're the ultimate "ultralight" gear!

I have a pair of Stanley Proto Tools locking vice grip pliers made in the USA and comparable in quality to the USA made Vice Grips.

The off-shore knock offs don't hold a candle to them.

I wish we made more stuff here in North America.

Logged

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? One should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

I have a tool drawer with a lot of Vice-Grip pliers. Well, okay, some are made by some POS offshore company but not many. There are regular ones, needle nose, clamps, and so forth. They have done about everything from locking onto stuff to pull it up on the roof, holding things while screwing or nailing what its holding to a post or wall, and anything, just about, that you can think of. An old pair even sacrificed its life to hold up a stainless steel pipe inside a brick chimney for a time.

They are a versatile tool to the nth degree.

Logged

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. (Mark Twain)

That's good to know about Stanley, Mike. Since Irwin bought the VISE-GRIP name and moved the manufacturing plant from Nebraska to China, I have no loyalty to the brand......just the design. BUY AMERICAN and avoid the yellow hoard!

Logged

The only chance you got at a education is listenin' to me talk!Augustus McCrae.....Texas Ranger Lonesome Dove, TX

One of the big differences is...when people had good paying factory jobs they could afford to pay a higher price for an item, coupled with that tho is that there was less off-shore competition creating a cheaper product, so people just bought the product made in North America.

Now, just about anything made here is made over-seas and cheaper. People have become reliant upon cheaper goods, why? because they make less money, why? cause the well paying factory jobs ( or even some of the lesser paying jobs ) are gone.

Now that the momentum has shifted to people wanting cheap, even if a company like Red brought up, moves back stateside, the people have now become used to cheap and don't have well paying jobs to buy higher priced goods, kind of a catch 22.

Globalization cares not about the standard of living in any country, it only concerns itself with profit...unfortunat ely, we in N.America who grew up knowing what a middle class was, are seeing a way of life we all probably took for granted slowly fade away.

This is the spiral I was talking about. Long before outsourcing became an issue, factory workers were loosing their jobs to automation. I was watching a How Is It Made TV episode and they pointed out that what used to take 20 factory workers a day to produce was now done by machines and ONE operator.

As for current workers not having as much money, I disagree. Way back in 1987 I wrote a computer program that compared the consumer prices of major staple items (bread, hamburger, cars) in 1964 with the wages back then. It also compared current (circa 1987) wages with consumer prices.What the program did was tell a person how many hours they had to work in 1964 to buy a loaf of bread, and how many hours (minutes) they had to work in 1987 to buy a loaf at current prices.In all cases, in 1987 a person had to work fewer hours to pay for, say a car, than they did 20 years earlier, even though the cost of those items had drastically increased. So had wages.I see no reason to believe the escalation (buying power) today hasn't continued to increase.In 1964, I was making $.75/hr wages. In 1987, I was making $12.00/hr. A loaf of bread or a pound of hamburger had only doubled in price, compared to my income.

I respectfully will say you are comparing apples to oranges in regards to wages. Hopefully as your work experience expands so does your wage. Secondly there is inflation. I would say rising gas oil prices are the major culprit, but there is no one factor that is exclusively the cause.

Yeah, and as arthritis devastates your finger joints and grip strength, those pliers become all the more important. I can see it now: New Hit Movie: Wolfy Plier Hand!

As for China, I grow weary of scandals involving adulterated foods, counterfeit merchandise, cheap knock-offs, and my favorite complaint: tools that look like tool you know but are totally non-functional. When a US or European company sends work to China, they are teaching the Yellow Peril how to make new stuff. Eventually, they will be competing with (and probably bankrupting) those who sent their work to China. The Chinese Corporations (Especially State Owned ones) have absolutely no morals or ethics. They will lie to you, bait-and-switch you, deny your valid claims, fail to provide customer service and in general, behave like there will never be a price to pay for this behavior. In our world, there is always someone who can make something a little shabbier and sell it a little cheaper and those who buy on price alone are this mans lawful prey.

Ol P- have you seen the report on minimum wage? If it had remained proportionate, it would be in the $23 per hour range today. Wages aren't nearly the percentage of cash flow of business monies like they were in the 70's and 80's. They will tell you it is, but it's not. Corporate profit is higher now than it ever has been. They'll outsource in a heartbeat to increase profit margins, and STILL whine that employee wages are killing them.

I'm not talking about Fed or State minimum wage jobs. The Teacher's Union in WA State threatens to strike nearly every year for higher wages. Even the engineers at Boeing have walked out twice in the past 7-8 years. The operating costs trickle down through every level, from the clerk at the register, to transportation costs of warehousing and handling delivery. We've been in an upward spiral of more demands by more workers for decades. The cost of fuels has only recently entered the equation. The effort involved in punching out an equipment part in a factory has not changed, other than to get easier through improved manufacturing techniques. The costs of materials has increased, but only because it costs more to supply those materials. Why?From the standpoint of a corporation, they are forced to reduce their labor force when the salary and benefits paid to one worker are equal to what it cost them to employ two workers 20 years ago.Why do the workers feel the need more money? To pay higher bills for everything from utilities, to toasters, to pharmaceuticals. What has driven those costs up? The demand for more compensation for the same amount of work. "Greed".....

"Why do the workers feel the need more money? To pay higher bills for everything from utilities, to toasters, to pharmaceuticals. What has driven those costs up? The demand for more compensation for the same amount of work. "Greed"....."

"The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country." George F. Baer, July 1902.

"There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down." David Ricardo, 1820.

"The iron law of wages." Turgot, 1766 (Named but theory credited to Ricardo, above).

Walmart is the largest company in the world. 1. Walmart earned $485.7 billion in revenue in 2014, which outpaced No. 2 Exxon Mobil by $103 billion.2. If Walmart were a country, its sales would rank it 28th in the world in GDP. That?s right behind Norway and ahead of Austria.Source: Fortune.

Among other practices, Walmart routinely pays employees wages at levels that necessitate them to seek public assistance. The company even goes as far as to, famously, provide information on how to get on the dole. Assistance that is provided by the public treasury. That's us, folks.

A situation that "advances" the Iron Law Of Wages downward beyond what even early industrial capitalists considered minimal standards of subsistence. Early industrial capitalists argued for the limiting, if not rescission, of the "Poor Laws" of their day, now their use is the most profitable "business model."

It is always interesting to see working folks arguing in favor of their own oppression. In a sad and unfortunately predictable way that would make Calvin feel if not happy at least reassured.

Friends, if anyone thinks this is about political parties or ideologies or hard working or lazy or "security" or this and that label you are seriously mistaken. It's just about money - who creates it, controls it, the how of it we all understand the why. That's all it's ever about. The rest is just smoke and mirrors.

Vallehombre, AMEN, Brother! We, The People, are being taxed to provide public assistance for the millions who cannot earn a living wage in America due to the irresponsible type of Capitalism that our government lauds as Sacred! Every society needs a little revolution once in a while.

Not to worry......lt's sprinkled throughout the thread, but let's just concentrate on the tool, its many uses & the many stories surrounding them.

In that same vein, and out of curiosity, I checked eBay for pricing on non-Irwin, genuine made-in-Nebraska, Petersen Vise-Grips. I've decided that since I lost all my guns in that canoeing accident , I'm going to take my vintage Vise-Grip collection and start storing them in my empty gun safe!

Logged

The only chance you got at a education is listenin' to me talk!Augustus McCrae.....Texas Ranger Lonesome Dove, TX

This is not an intentional 'bump' of one of my OLD threads, but I saw that a 'guest' was reading it, so, for fun, I just re-read the thread myself. One thing I noticed, particularly, is that most of us misspell VISE-Grips as VICE-Grips.....or maybe not.

Logged

The only chance you got at a education is listenin' to me talk!Augustus McCrae.....Texas Ranger Lonesome Dove, TX